Australia and New
Zealand have agreed to work together to prepare for the
unlikely event of a foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in
either country.

Australian Minister for Agriculture,
Barnaby Joyce, and New Zealand Minister for Primary
Industries, Nathan Guy, met today in Melbourne and welcomed
the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to stress
the importance of collaboration in combating the disease and
its devastating impacts.

“Our number one plan and focus
of much of our biosecurity efforts is to keep FMD out of
Australia and New Zealand—but you can’t stick your head
in the sand about something this significant —you have to
plan for the worst,” Minister Joyce said.

“Australia
has an internationally recognised capability to deal quickly
and effectively with emergency animal disease
outbreaks.”

“Recent
ABARES research found the impact of an FMD outbreak in
Australia could cost our economy up to $52 billion over 10
years, therefore we have more than 50 billion reasons to
work together to continue Australia’s 100 year record of
freedom from FMD,” Minister Joyce said.

New Zealand
Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy said greater
collaboration would improve readiness and capacity to cope
with an outbreak of FMD or any other significant exotic
animal disease.

“We will work together in fields such as
sharing intelligence on risk, collaborating on training
opportunities, sharing scarce skills in the event of an
outbreak and influencing international policy in the area of
disease management.

“New Zealand has now joined the
well-established Australian FMD training programme in Nepal,
which has engaged the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization to provide veterinarians and key livestock
industry representatives the opportunity to experience FMD
in the field.

“It is well known that an outbreak of FMD
would cause significant economic and social damage with the
closure of many international markets for animal products
and control measures having huge impacts on tourism, food
chain businesses, farming families, rural business and
communities,” Mr Guy said.

Another benefit of the MoU is
helping to ensure that an international reserve of
veterinary specialists and other skilled personnel can be
activated quickly.

New Zealand recently provided
veterinary assistance to the successful New South Wales
avian influenza eradication effort and continues to observe
the Australian FMD simulation—Exercise Odysseus—a series
of discussion and field-base exercises being held throughout
2014.

“Exercise simulations and participation in
activities also ensures there is a mutual understanding of
how systems work in the other country, which means that
staff can rapidly integrate into the other country’s
systems in the event they are needed,” Mr Guy
said.

Minister Joyce said working closely together and
participating in exercises helped build very useful links
between the two countries.

“Australia and New Zealand
have a long history of cooperation in areas of mutual
interest and preparedness for a significant animal disease
outbreak is certainly a worthy area to partner on,”
Minister Joyce
said.

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